


Teen Tank Engine: Season 2

by colonelmoran



Series: Teen Tank Engine [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Railway Series - W. Awdry, Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Ridiculous
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-05-24 09:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colonelmoran/pseuds/colonelmoran
Summary: Scott McCall and his friends find themselves facing new and stranger threats, as train spotters and engines vie for control of New Sodor's railways. As if surviving high school wasn't hard enough already...





	1. Episode One: “The Railroad to War”

Chris Argent throws open the passenger’s side door of Allison’s little blue car and grabs Scott McCall by the shirt collar. Scott, his lips still locked with Allison’s, is taken completely by surprise. He has no chance to brace himself, no way to bring the steely strength that Thomas—the supernatural steam engine who shares Scott’s soul—offers him to bear. Chris yanks him from his seat and dumps him on his back in the dead leaves and dingy snow by the side of the road. Scott lies very still, a decision motivated largely by the loaded crossbow now pointed at the bridge of his nose.

     “Daddy, no!” Allison Argent yells. Her deep brown eyes are wide with shock, but her voice is an order, not a hysterical protest. “Dad, he saved our lives. You can’t just kill him.”

     Chris’ mouth twists in anger, but he does not take his eyes from Scott. The hand holding the crossbow, a vicious pistol-sized model with clockwork built into the metal stock, does not waver. Scott is alarmed, but not precisely shocked. Allison’s father is the captain of the local train spotters, an order of vigilantes whose sole mission is to hunt down steam engines—people like Scott—when they lose control.

     “This,” Chris growls from behind clenched teeth, “is unacceptable.”

     “Please,” Allison entreats, lowering her voice. “Please Dad, just let him go. It won’t happen again.”

     Chris glares at Scott. “Is that true?”

     “Sir?”

     “If I let you go, will you try to see my daughter again?”

     “No sir,” Scott says emphatically. He can hear the crossbow’s cables singing with tension.

     Chris grunts and lowers the bow. Scott exhales for what feels like the first time in hours. He glances over at Allison. Her face is white with fury, her mouth pressed into a razor thin line. He selfishly hopes that rage is directed at her father, not at him.

     “Never again,” says Mr. Argent flatly.

     Scott nods and feels a handful of slushy snow slither down the back of his neck.

     The Argents drive away, Chris’ SUV following Allison like a police escort. Scott looks around the little rest area at the foot of Gordon’s Hill, empty now save for a few picnic tables and the sign telling people not to feed any wildlife they might encounter, and sighs.

     “This is going to complicate things,” he says aloud.

     Then he trudges off in the direction of the nearest abandoned railway. Being a teen tank engine does have some perks, and never being caught without a ride is one of them.

 

Lydia Martin picks her way along the snowy sidewalk. It’s only a few blocks from her bus stop to her father’s house, but the neighbors have done an indifferent job of shoveling. Bluish ice-melt crunches unpleasantly under the soles of Lydia’s soft leather boots.

     As she crosses Branch Street, something seems to arrest her attention. She stops in the middle of the barely ploughed road and stares off into the distance. She can see nothing out of the ordinary: little houses, streetlights starting to come on, and beyond them the unkempt woodland of New Sodor County. She can hear nothing unusually either, only the creak of a weathervane turning in the chill wind. The scene is peaceful, even dull. Yet something calls to Lydia. She has an undeniable feeling that something is happening not far away, something important.

     “I should be there,” she murmurs.

     Lydia shakes her head, exasperated with herself. She doesn’t even know where ‘there’ is. It’s getting dark. What she should be doing is getting along home. Well, getting along to her father’s house anyway.

     She lets herself in by the front door, stamping her boots briskly on the mat. The noise causes her father, tucked into his writing nook next to the kitchen and surrounded by weighty books on cognitive theory, to look up.

     “Oh hello, sweetheart,” he says. Mr. Martin is a man of middling height and build, with Lydia’s round cheekbones and blue-green eyes. He shoves a flyer for a lecture series into one of the books by way of a bookmark and climbs hastily to his feet. The only light in the whole place that seems to be on is the lamp over his desk, so he hastens towards the bank of light switches. Lydia, who is closer, steps across and beats him to it. The flood of light reveals a stiffly formal little living room and an off-white kitchen, completely bare of any visible food.

     Lydia sighs. “Hi Dad. Given any thought to dinner?”

     “Well, I was thinking we might order out. There’s a new Middle Eastern place across from the post office we could try or…”

     “Fine,” says Lydia shortly. “Get me something with chicken in it, please.”

     “Of course,” says her father, his eyes flicking back to his abandoned manuscript and then to his daughter once more. “Are you…ah… are you doing alright, sweetheart? After something like what happened to you and your friends at Brendam Station, many people—especially in your age group—will feel a sense of heightened isolation.”

     Lydia just stares at him.

     “It’s a perfectly normal feeling,” he assures her with a slightly strained smile. “But if you want to talk about it…”

     Lydia shakes her head. “Right now I want to shower and change into my pajamas. Just order some food, okay Dad?”

     Mr. Martin nods and fishes in a pocket of the sweater draped over his desk chair, presumably to look up the restaurant’s number. Lydia turns and pads down the hall to her bedroom.

     As she steps through the connecting door to the bathroom, now clad only in a terrycloth robe, she feels again a sense of urgency. There is somewhere she is supposed to be going. The idea is so clear, so potent, that for a long moment Lydia simply stands there wracking her brain for any appointments she might have forgotten, though she knows full well that there is nothing. Her schedule is empty.

     She shakes her head, disrobes, and steps gratefully into the cascade of warm water. For a few minutes Lydia is able to lose herself in the familiar routine of lather, rinse, repeat. Then, having washed the last of the orange zest shampoo from her red-gold hair, she makes the mistake of opening her eyes.

     “Oh shit…”

     Lydia stares in dismay at her naked body. Her skin is… wrong. The falling water moves oddly over it, as though Lydia were made of something far more impermeable than flesh. The play of light is just as strange, more like the gleam of fresh paint than the glisten of wet skin. Deep grooves are forming over Lydia’s knuckles and the pads of her fingers, bolder than simple pruning and more geometric.

     Heart pounding, Lydia tears aside the shower curtain and stares at herself in the mirror. Water splashes onto the floor but she ignores it. Her face is grey, beyond ashen, and her hair is deepening from ruddy gold to a harsh cadmium red. Worse, she catches a glimpse of numbers inscribed on her back, about the level of her waist. She twists around to read them: CRD54.

     “What the fuck?” Lydia moans. “What the fuck kind of engine am I turning into?”

     As if in answer to her question, the sense that she should be somewhere else returns, now crushingly strong. Lydia struggles against it for a moment, but it’s like fighting her way out of the gravity well of a neutron star. Her chest heaves and she trembles with the effort of resistance.

     Then something inside Lydia seems to snap. Why has she been wasting time struggling? She has a job to do.

 

When the trickle of water coming from under the bathroom door finally attracts Mr. Martin’s attention, Lydia is long gone. The Bathroom window stands wide open, letting in gusts of frigid December air.

 

**OPENING THEME PLAYS/TITLE CARDS**

 

     “She did what?” Sheriff Noah Stilinski demands. “Jesus, it’s going to be eight below tonight. Okay. Get everyone we can spare on this. Get someone to put together a missing persons report, then start organizing search parties.”

     “Search parties?” Stiles Stilinski, the sheriff’s son, looks up from his school-issued copy of Sister Carrie, his boyish face alight with interest. “What’s going on, Dad?”

     The sheriff, on the phone with the station, waves impatiently for his son to be quiet. He’s already abandoned his place at the kitchen table and is shrugging into his coat.

     “Okay,” he says into the phone. “Tell the K-9 unit to meet me at 391 Viaduct Ave. Okay.”

     “Viaduct Ave?” Stiles interjects. “Dad, that’s Lydia’s address.”

     The sheriff ends his call and stuffs the phone into a jacket pocket. “That’s right. I’ve got to get over there right away. You’ll be on your own for dinner. There’s pulled pork in the crockpot.”

     “Dad, tell me what’s going on.”

     Noah sighs. “Your friend Lydia’s gone missing.”

     “What?”

     “Her father thinks she climbed out of the bathroom window.”

     “But where was she going?”

     “I’ve no idea. But she didn’t take her coat or boots and the temperature’s dropping like a stone out there. If we don’t find her soon, she could be in real danger.”

     And on that cheerful note, the sheriff departs. Stiles wastes no time in calling his best friend, Scott McCall.

 

Scott drops his jeans on the floor of Allison’s bedroom and drops himself onto the bed beside her. Allison gives him a wickedly dimpled smile and twines both slender arms about his neck, pulling him close. Scott kisses her fiercely. Her pale and perfect body, naked save for a pair of baby blue panties, moves sinuously beneath him and suddenly Scott’s boxer briefs feel several sizes too small.

     Scott knows that this is, in all likelihood, a terrible idea. He’d arrived home from his sunset saunter along New Sodor’s long neglected railways fully resolved to spend a quiet night with his homework and then turn in early so as to be well rested for lacrosse practice. But then, just as he was cracking open his algebra book, his phone buzzed with a message from Allison.

     _Turns out both parents driving to airport tonight. Home alone for 4+ hours. See you soon?_

Scott can’t quite remember what happened after that point. Certainly no rational decisions were carefully weighed.

     Allison’s hands roam across Scott’s body, fingers trailing through dark hair and over olive skin, feeling the rippling muscles beneath. The numeral ‘one’ branded on his bare chest is smoldering with heat. She presses herself to him, little sounds of need escaping from their locked lips.

     From the floor, Scott’s phone begins loudly to play the X-Files theme music. Scott groans, letting his forehead rest against Allison’s.

     “Stiles…” he mutters.

     After a particularly bad incident on Allison’s last birthday, Scott’s best friend made him set up his phone so that Stiles’ calls at least will always be able to get through loud and clear in the event of an emergency.

     “Is it important?” asks Allison reluctantly. One of her hands is still gripping Scott’s left thigh.

     “Probably,” Scott admits. “Or he’d just text me about it. Give me five minutes?”

     Allison nods and lets Scott tear himself away. He fishes the phone out of his jeans and answers it, staring absently out of Allison’s bedroom window.

     “Scott?”

     “Yeah, it’s me.”

     “Scott, something’s happened to Lydia.”

     Scott sits up straighter, a cold dagger of fear slicing cleanly through his tangled thoughts. “To Lydia? Tell me.”

     Stiles explains about their friend’s disappearance. Well, friend may be stretching a point. Lydia, the cast iron queen of New Sodor High School’s social scene, is genuinely friends with Allison. She tolerates Scott and Stiles and—only a few days ago—helped them defeat an insane express train with dynamite. Scott also knows that Stiles has had a crush on Lydia since round about the third grade.

     “Okay,” says Scott, cutting off Stiles who is starting to babble. “It’s going to be okay, Stiles. We’ll find her.”

     “Lydia’s missing?” asks Allison, reaching for her discarded bra.

     Scott nods, cellphone still pressed to his ear. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’re going to form a search party of our own. Allison and I will come meet you. The jeep will be better for icy roads. You put that brain to work. Try and figure out where we should start looking. Okay?”

     “Okay,” Stiles says, sounding relived to have any kind of plan. “Thanks Scott.”

     “See you soon,” Scott tells him, then ends the call.

     He explains the situation to Allison as they hastily dress.

     “Do you think someone snatched her?” Allison asks, buckling on her belt.

     “I don’t know,” Scott demurs.

     “Scott,” says Allison, giving him a sharp look. “What aren’t you telling me?”

     Scott sighs. “Stiles has a theory.”

     “Yes?”

     “He thinks Lydia is some kind of engine too. He thinks that’s how she healed her wrist so fast and how she saved your life when that beam was going to fall on you at Brendam Station.”

     Allison frowns. “But Lydia would know, right? I mean, being branded, it isn’t the kind of thing you forget, right?”

     “No,” Scott agrees, wincing. “It really isn’t.”

     “So then how can she be an engine?”

     “I don’t know,” Scott admits. “Maybe…”

     He breaks off abruptly, staring out of the window.

     “What is it?” Allison demands, looking from Scott to the empty driveway.

     “Rails,” Scott says, using the steam engine word for the parallel lines of blue and red light that accompany the movements of every thinking person. “Someone’s coming.”

     “Shit. How can they be getting home so early?” Allison gasps. She snatches her coat and pushes Scott towards the bedroom door. “Back door. Now.”

     They barely make it. They are actually on the steps of the back porch when the lights flick on. Scott dives left, Allison right. They crouch on either side of the steps, keeping their heads below the level of the porch.

     Footsteps approach, ringing clearly on the tiled kitchen floor, accompanied by faintly muffled voices.

     “And Allison?” a deep male voice, unfamiliar to Scott, inquires.

     “In her room,” Chris Argent says confidently. “Probably sulking.”

     “Oh?”

     “I had to tell her off about a boy today.”

     “I see,” says the other man. “Sounds rather like…”

     The deep voice falters.

     “…like Kate at that age,” he finishes at last.

     After a painful silence, Victoria Argent—Allison’s mother—coughs lightly. “Gerard, can I get you anything to drink?”

     “Hard cider, please. If you have any.”

     There’s the sound of the fridge opening and shutting and then the voices and footsteps move off in the direction of the fortified parlor that the Argents call the war room.

     Scott exhales and glances over at Allison. Her expression is stricken.

     “What’s wrong?” Scott whispers.

     “Gerard,” she breathes. “That’s my grandfather’s name.”

     “Another train spotter?” Scott asks.

     “I think so. He, ah, I haven’t seen him since I was very small.”

     “Is he dangerous?”

     “Kate admired him. But, Scott, I think she was also a little afraid of him.”

     Scott pales. Kate Argent was a ruthless killer with the discipline of guerilla general and the instincts of a predator. She hadn’t been scared of much.

     “Lydia, Scott,” Allison reminds him. “Worry about my homicidal family later. Lydia needs us now.”

     Scott nods, pulling himself together. “Right. We can’t take your car without them noticing. Are you okay if I carry you?”

     Allison smiles at him. “There’s the silver lining I was looking for.”

 

Isaac Lahey maneuvers his father’s pickup truck along the icy roads. The driving conditions are not improved by the full load of coals in the back of his truck. The Laheys own and operate _Romulus_ , the county’s only surviving coal fired pizza restaurant. It’s not what you’d call a cash cow and Isaac’s father has reasoned that he can save a little money by making his teenage son collect the weekly shipment of coal for the ovens, instead of paying to have it delivered. Isaac, a rawboned youth with curly, dishwater blonde hair, grumbles wordlessly to himself and switches on the radio, scanning through stations until he finds something sufficiently heavy and metallic. Screaming guitars and caterwauling vocals pour from the speakers, interrupted by the occasional burst of static.

     A few hundred yards down the road, a tree topples over onto the tarmac. Isaac swears and, checking that he has no cars behind him, brakes hard. The tree is a big one, still covered in green needles. Isaac frowns as he slows and performs careful U-turn. The wind outside is noisy, but not strong enough to uproot trees.

     There is another tree down behind him. Isaac stares at it, a spreading birch with the stumps of icicles glittering along its branches. No way is this a fucking coincidence. He brings the truck to a standstill, switches off the radio, and listens hard.

     Something lands with a clang on the bed of the pickup. Isaac whips round, craning his neck to stare out the rear window. A man crouches there. He has peeled back the tarp and is fumbling with the sacks of coal. Isaac knows from experience that the sacking is tough, some kind of white plastic canvas, but the man is tearing into it with his bare fingers as though it were tissue paper. Dark coals come spilling out. The man snatches a handful and shoves them into his mouth. Soot trickles from between his lips as he chews.

     “What the fuck?” Isaac whispers. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck…”

     He fumbles his cell phone from his pocket and dials 9-1-1.

     “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” says a coolly professional female voice.

     “Um, yeah, I’m, um… there’s someone stealing the coal out of my truck,” Isaac says weakly.

     The man, he now sees, is rail thin, with long brown hair streaked with grey. His clothes are ragged and stained with mud.

     “What is your location?” the 9-1-1 operator enquires.

     “Uh, Route 8 about halfway between New Sodor and Maithwaite. There’s some trees down. I’m, uh, stuck.”

     “Okay sir. I’m going to ask you to stay on the line and not engage with the perpetrator. Officers will be on their way to shortly.”

     “He’s eating it,” Isaac says incredulously. “He’s fucking _eating_ it.”

     “What’s that, sir?”

     Isaac bangs angrily on the back window of the truck. “Hey you! Get out of there.”

     The man ignores him. Isaac hangs up his phone and feels around under the seat until he comes up with a tire iron. Then he gets out of the truck.

     “I said to get out of there!” he yells, brandishing the tire iron menacingly.

     The man continues to shovel coal into his face. Isaac steps forward and brings the tire iron down smartly on the stranger’s wrist. There is a metallic clang. The man does not so much as flinch.

     Isaac stares at him, eyes bulging. “What… what are you?”

     The man turns and looks him full in the face for the first time.

     “Hungry,” he rasps. His teeth are stained black. “I’m hungry.”

     He stands, picks up a fresh sack of coals, and slings it casually over one shoulder. Then he hops down from the pickup and walks off into the night.

     Isaac stares after him for a long time.

     “What the fuck?”

 

Stiles is almost hopping up and down with impatience by the time Scott arrives at his house, carrying Allison in his arms and trailing great plumes of steam into the cold night air. Stiles’ raises his eyebrows.

     “You ran all the way?”

     “Complications,” Scott mutters, setting Allison down lightly on her feet. She leans up to kiss his cheek and his face seems to regain something of its normal human color.

     “My grandfather’s in town,” Allison explains. “He must be heading up the new crew of train spotters.”

     Stiles frowns. “The ones coming to check up on your parents?”

     Allison nods. “For what I could glean, it’s going to be somewhere between reinforcements and an internal review.”

     “And your grandfather is in charge of it?”

     Allison nods again.

     Stiles whistles. “No way that could be awkward. ‘So son, I hear you let your little sister get killed. Talk to me about that.’”

     “Stiles!” Scott barks, shooting his friend a dirty look.

     Stiles has the grace to look ashamed of himself. “Sorry, Allison. That was shitty of me. I’m just freaked about Lydia and my mouth is galloping around out of control.”

     “I’m worried about her too,” Allison assures him. “Any idea where we should start looking?”

     “The police will be starting from her dad’s place. I think we’d just end getting in their way.”

     “But if she really is an engine of some kind,” Scott points out, “she could have gotten almost anywhere using the rails.”

     One of things Scott has discovered since the onset of the wintry weather is that Thomas can easily manifest a snowplough when he transforms into his engine shape. It would take far worse weather even than this to stop a determined engine.

     “And police dogs would have a hard time tracking her in train form,” Allison adds.

     Stiles nods. “So we need to use our heads. Where would Lydia go, assuming her engine is running wild? Scott, you’re our test case. When you were first branded and your boiler pressure was spiking, what was running through your head?”

     “Um…” says Scott, coloring slightly. “Mostly Allison.”

     “Seriously?” Stiles groans. “Nothing else?”

     “Well, a lot of the boiler pressure manifested itself as anger, but that was pretty directionless. I would get mad at anyone: Derek, Jackson, even you.”

     “I remember,” Stiles says wryly.

     “But the only constant…”

     “…was Allison,” Stiles finishes, glancing aside at Allison who is turning pink and trying to suppress a grin of Cheshire cat proportions. “So by that logic, the place to start looking for Lydia would be…”

     “Here?” Scott suggests.

     Stiles pulls a face. “Thanks for the optimism, but I think we both know that we should start with Jackson’s.”

    

Jackson Whittemore sits side-by-side on a chic white couch with Danny Māhealani, his best friend of many years, trying to concentrate on the videogame they are playing.

     “Dude, you gotta take cover before you reload,” Danny admonishes, as a burst of automatic fire scythes through the hit box representing Jackson’s head.

     “I know,” Jackson growls. “I know, I just…”

     He breaks off, shaking his head in frustration.

     Danny looks at him, concern written plainly upon his long face and in his deep brown eyes. Jackson continues to shake his head.

     “I don’t feel great,” he admits.

     That much is true. Ever since Derek Hale tried to brand Jackson, to burn the spirit of a steam engine into his flesh and soul, Jackson has been suffering strange attacks of fever, chills, and even nausea. At first he assumed these were part of the change, manifestations of his engine’s boiler pressure. Now he isn’t so sure. He certainly doesn’t feel any stronger or faster. Of course, if he has some entirely mortal flu bug, that could well be making him feel weaker than he really is, sort of cancelling out the engine’s influence. That’s probably it, he tells himself. Of course. Probably.

     “Yeah, you don’t look so great,” Danny says sympathetically. “Your face went really grey there for a minute.”

     Jackson brushes this aside.

     “Come on,” he says, picking up the controller. “We can beat this level. One more try.”

     Danny nods, reaching for his own controller, then suddenly freezes. His eyes are locked on Jackson’s face.

     “Holy shit, man.”

     “What is it?” Jackson demands.

     He reaches up to touch his face and finds that something thick and greasy is oozing from his nose. A pitch-black droplet falls from his fingers, staining the couch’s white upholstery.

     “It’s okay,” says Jackson loudly, snatching for a box of Kleenex. “It’s okay. I’ll be back in a minute.”

     Pressing a wad of tissues to both nostrils, he bolts for the bathroom. Danny stares after him in alarm.

     It takes Jackson several minutes to stem the flow of dark fluid. By the time he has, the toilet bowl is overflowing with crumpled tissues, stained a filthy black, and the air is sharp with a smell like gasoline.

     Feeling nauseous again and hoping the cold air might bring relief, Jackson doesn’t return immediately to the den but instead goes to stand outside on the patio. Gardeners have been in to shovel, but the place still looks forlorn. The outdoor furniture is long gone and icicles like glassy daggers drip from the trellis. Jackson shivers. Then something new catches his attention.

     There are lines of brilliant blue light running over the icy flagstone path that leads to the driveway. Jackson counts three distinct sets, each consisting of two parallel lines. A moment later, three people appear from behind a bend in a snow-covered hedge: Allison Argent, Stiles Stilinski, and Scott McCall.

     “Jackson,” Scott greets him, none too warmly.

     Jackson bares his teeth in something that might conceivably be confused for a smile.

     “McCall. What do you think you’re doing here?”

     “Lydia’s missing,” Stiles cuts in. “Have you seen her?”

     Jackson folds his arms across his chest. “I haven’t.”

     “Have you seen anything else?” Allison asks. Her pretty face is pinched with worry. “Or heard anything? Anything strange?”

     “Any train whistles, you mean?” asks Jackson, his eyes hard. “No, I haven’t. That freak shit only seems to happen when you losers are around. Wonder why that might be.”

     When none of them rises to the bait, he shakes his head disgustedly and asks, “So what the hell’s going on this time?”

     “Stiles told you,” says Scott, looking at Jackson oddly. “Lydia’s going missing.”

     “How?” Jackson demands.

     While Stiles gives a quick account of Lydia’s disappearance, Scott continues to give Jackson the odd look. At last he pulls the older boy aside and asks in a voice too low to be overheard, “Jackson, are you okay?”

     “What the hell do you mean?” Jackson snaps.

     “Your ears,” Scott whispers.

     Jackson touches his ears lightly. To his dismay, his fingers come away glistening with black fluid. He wipes it away hastily, before Stiles and Allison can notice.

     “Jackson, your change isn’t going well, is it?” asks Scott, his voice still low and concerned.

     “I’m fine,” Jackson snarls.

     “You should talk to Derek about it.”

     “Why? Because he branded me? That doesn’t mean he owns me.”

     “No,” Scott agrees. “But he knows more about engines than either of us. He might be able to help you.”

     “I don’t need any help,” Jackson insists. A fresh wave of nausea hits him and the words come out sounding weak and petulant.

     Scott shakes his head wearily. “Well, think about it. We’ve got to keep looking for Lydia.”

     He turns and walks away down the icy path. The other two look from Scott to Jackson and back again, obviously puzzled, but in a moment they too turn to go. Jackson watches until they’re out of sight. The lines of light that mark where they’ve been, rather than where they’re going, burn a dull red.

     “Shit,” Jackson mutters.

     “Hey Jackson.” That voice is Danny, standing in the open doorway, his brow creased with worry. “Everything all right?”

     “Not even close,” Jackson whispers, but his words are whipped away on the cold wind.

 

Isaac sits numbly behind the wheel of the parked pickup, waiting for the 9-1-1 responders to arrive. Outside, the moon is rising.

     “He must have been crazy,” the boy mutters to himself. “A nutcase like you see on TV. Like the guy who ate an airplane or whatever.”

     Except being crazy doesn’t let you shrug of blows from an iron bar. It doesn’t let you toss around sacks of coal like thistledown. Something seriously weird is going on here.

     Almost as soon as Isaac has completed this thought, the huge birch tree blocking the road in front of him begins to move. Its branches whip wildly back and forth as the trunk rises from the tarmac, spraying ice crystals in all directions. But through the wall of waving limbs, Isaac can see the shape of a man. The man is lifting the birch tree, holding it by its trunk as it were a mop that some careless custodian has left in the fairway, and not more than a ton of timber. He leans it up against the rock face of the road cut with exaggerated care, then strolls over to the pickup truck. Isaac goggles at him through the driver’s side window.

     This is not the man Isaac saw before, all skin and bones and lank brown hair. This man looks to be in his late twenties, with dark hair and sharp cheekbones. He’s built like an athlete and dressed in black jeans and a leather jacket. When he smiles at Isaac, his blue-grey eyes glimmer with just a hint of self-satisfaction.

     “Hey, kid,” says Derek Hale, pointing down the road to the next fallen tree. “Need a hand with that?”

    

     “What did you say to Jackson?” Stiles demands, as Scott hops back into the passenger’s seat of Stiles’ battered old jeep.

     “Later,” Scott says, his face unhappy. “For now we need to focus on finding Lydia.”

     “You think Jackson was telling us the truth? He really hadn’t seen her?”

     “Yeah,” says Scott, still morose. “I do.”

     “She could still be on her way here,” Allison offers from the backseat.

     Scott shakes his head. “Their houses aren’t very far apart, not by rail. If she’d wanted to be here, she already would be.”

     “So where else might she have wanted to go?” Stiles queries.

     “Her mom’s place?” Allison suggests.

     “Maybe…” Scott begins.

     “Or,” Allison adds quickly, her face shining with sudden inspiration, “her mom’s old place! The house that the express train knocked down.”

     Stiles’ ears practically perk up like a hunting dog’s. He looks quickly over at Scott.

     “Scott, does that track?”

     Scott nods slowly. “She’ll be disoriented. Probably frightened. Boiler pressure pushes on all your emotions, but it pushes hardest on the most primal ones.”

     “Like the need for shelter,” Stiles says, nodding. “The need to feel safe.”

     “And when in her life has Lydia probably felt safest?” Allison asks rhetorically.

     “When she was in the house she grew up in.”

     Scott nods. “Her engine won’t remember that the house is just a big pile of rubble. It’ll only know that’s where she thinks she ought to be. So that’s where it will take her.”

     Stiles smacks the wheel of the jeep decisively, eliciting a _Hey!_ of protest that only Scott can hear. “It’s a good theory. Let’s get over there right now.”

     He pulls out of Jackson’s driveway and heads for Lydia’s old neighborhood, driving as quickly as the slippery roads and elderly automobile will safely allow. Their route takes them alongside the River Callan, and thus under the looming shadow of the Hackenberg Bridge. The old railway bridge bristles with icicles, some as long as pikes and stained a sickly yellow by the rusting metal girders. In the moonlight, the archway seems like some hideous mouth lined with rows of needle teeth.

     Scott shudders, and as if in response, there comes the long wail of a steam engine. Stiles hits the brakes. The teenagers stare at one another, their eyes full of a wild surmise.

     “Lydia…” Stiles breathes.

     “We don’t know that,” Scott cautions, already unbuckling his seatbelt. Stiles and Allison hasten to copy him.

     “No,” Scott says sharply. “Even if it is Lydia, she might not be in control. She might be dangerous.”

     “So you should have back up,” Stiles says firmly.

     Scott shakes his head. “You two aren’t armed. If it comes to a fight, you’ll only get yourselves hurt or killed. And if she chooses to flee instead, you’ll never keep up on foot. Stay with the jeep. Go to her old house. If she turns up there or if I can bring her there, maybe we can all calm her down enough to let her shift back.”

     Stiles doesn’t look happy but Allison nods and slides smoothly into the passenger’s seat as Scott hops from the jeep. “We’ll be there,” she assures Scott, looking down at him with a grave expression and fathomless brown eyes. “Take care of yourself.”

     Scott nods. Then he leaps into the air, the muscles and tendons of his legs firing like vast pistons. He catches a metal strut in one hand and proceeds to swarm up the side of the bridge like a kid scaling a jungle gym. As he drops lightly to the rusting rails, that whistle shatters the night again. Now, with Thomas’ spirit coursing through him, Scott thinks he can detect a note of fear. This engine, whoever they are, is in deep trouble.

     Scott takes off towards the sound, running at first, then chugging ahead at full steam, as his body blurs and becomes—in a flash of blue and crimson paintwork—that of Thomas the Tank Engine.

     As he barrels along the tracks, he keep his eyes peeled for any kind of movement, but in particular for the rails of light, visible only to an engine’s tunnel vision, that betray the movements of intelligent creatures.

     There. A flicker of sapphire light. To Scott’s surprise, the glow isn’t coming from the track ahead of him, but from the patchy forest off to his right. A moment later, a shape comes hurtling out of the trees.

     It is an engine, but an engine unlike any Scott has seen before. It has only four wheels and the last pair are far bigger than the others and lined with thick, grooved treads. These give it good purchase on the uneven ground, apparently allowing it travel without rails. Its body is narrow, but its smokestack is almost comically tall, coughing smog and vapor into the cold night air. Its livery is a dark mossy green, offset with dull red accents and tarnished brass work. But it is the face that holds Scott’s attention. Perfectly round and ashen grey, it’s not a face that could ever be mistaken for human. But the terror and desperation written on those smooth, colorless features is unmistakable.

     “Out of my way!” the engine screams, surging up the side of the embankment without altering its course. Its voice is a man’s, ragged and panicked. “They’re coming!”

     “Who?” Scott demands, reversing just in time to avoid a collision. “Who is coming?”

     “The train spotters, you fool! Get away from here.”

     Scott swears. He hadn’t expected the Argents to be out hunting tonight, not with Allison’s grandfather newly arrived in town. If Lydia ran afoul of them with her engine still running wild, then Scott and his friends’ search may well be in vain. She may already be dead.

     Unfortunately, his only likely source of information has already crossed the train tracks and is barreling into the woods once, snapping leafless trees like chopsticks and crushing the snow-laden brambles to slush and splinters.  

     “Hey wait up!” Scott calls, trying to keep his voice low but carrying. “I need to know if you’ve seen someone. Another engine, a girl. Hey wait!”

     But the strange engine makes no reply, only redoubling its speed with a fresh belch of steam from its chimney.

     Scott snarls in frustration and abandons his train shape, throwing off the extra mass like a suddenly too heavy coat. He sprints after the escaping engine on two legs, making use of the wide swathe of destruction left in its wake.

     Scott catches up after less than half a mile. The strange engine brakes without warning and a moment later, Scott realizes why: a shear drop looms ahead of them.

     Scott hastily checks his own forward momentum, trying to get his bearings. This cliff must be the edge of the abandoned Anopha Quarry. On the north side of the huge pit is a switchback truck path, but here on the south side there is only the plunge. Scott can’t begin to guess how long the fall would be. Three hundred feet? Four? Grey-green ice glitters up him from far below, a brittle covering over black waters of unfathomable depth and cold. It takes a lot to kill an engine, but that drop might just do it.

     The strange four-wheeled engine shudders and suddenly is replaced by a rail thin man with shaggy grey and brown hair. His ragged clothes are stained with mud and soot.

     “Who are you?” Scott demands.

     “Stop following me!” the man orders, sounding more than a little deranged. “You’ll draw them right to us!”

     Scott shakes his head, striding towards the stranger. “Have you seen any other engines tonight? I need to know.”

     “No one!” the man barks, jumping back dangerously close to the cliff’s edge. “I’ve seen no one.”

     Scott holds very still and tries to speak in calm, reassuring tones. Crazy or not, he doesn’t want this man falling to his death. “Why are the train spotters after you?”

     The man sneers. “They’re after all of us, aren’t they?”

     “Not all of us,” Scott corrects him. “Only the engines who hurt people.”

     “You mean their so-called code?” The ragged man lets out a single harsh bray of laughter. “You don’t seriously think any of them lets those old rules stop them when they’re out on the hunt, do you?”

     He shakes his head violently. “Well, it doesn’t matter what you think. I’m getting out of here.”

     He throws first one leg and then the other over the side of the cliff, gripping the stone lip now only by fingertips. Then, to Scott’s dismay, he starts to climb down.

     There are no hand or footholds in the cliff wall, so the engine makes his own, kicking and punching the stone hard enough to gouge holes. Scott stares for a moment, paralyzed with indecision. He certainly doesn’t want to get tangled up with the train spotters right now, and besides, that climb could well be deadly in its own right. One slip is all it would take.

     Still, a new engine arriving New Sodor on the very same night that Lydia disappears? Can that possibly be a coincidence? Scott shakes his head at his own idiocy and marches towards the edge of the cliff.

     Before he’s gone two steps, someone seizes him from behind. He struggles, but even Thomas’ strength is no match for Scott’s assailant. A brawny arm wraps around him, pinning his arms to his sides, and a hand clamps over his mouth to silence him. Then a familiar voice hisses into his ear.

     “Stop that,” Derek Hale orders. “It’s too late. Watch.”

     Derek pulls them both into the shadow of an elm tree whose bare branches lean out over the edge of the quarry. From here Scott can see that the other engine has reached the base of the cliff. He turns and sprints away over the ice. Cracks spread out in his wake like jagged spider webs, but as long as he doesn’t channel his engine, his merely human weight isn’t quite enough to plunge him into the freezing depths. He reaches the northern side of the quarry in minutes and leaps gratefully onto the gravel truck path.

     Floodlights flick on. They’re the portable kind used by construction crews for night work and they’ve been set up to scour the truck path in harsh silver light. The strange engine staggers backwards, throwing up a skinny arm to shield his eyes.

     The light also reveals the forms of the train spotters who have been waiting on the path. There are more than a dozen of them, men and women in black leather and camouflage, armed with crossbows and recurves, hatchets and machetes. Scott is too far away to make out the expressions on their faces, but their postures of predatory patience tell the story clearly enough. The quarry was a trap, and the unfortunate stranger has been herded right into its jaws.

     The desperate engine shoots a glance back over his shoulder. The cracks in the ice are widening. He turns back to the train spotters. Their hands rest on their weapons. Scott can see the ragged man set his shoulders grimly. Then he lowers his head and charges.

     He doesn’t even have time to shift forms before a gold-titanium crossbow quarrel punches heavily through his right knee. He screams and falls to the ground, writhing and curling in the dust and gravel.

     “We have to help him!” Scott whispers, twisting around in Derek’s grip.

     Derek hangs on grimly and shakes his head. His grey eyes are like chips of flint. “We can’t.”

     One of the train spotters steps forward. He stands as straight as a poker and the harsh light gleams on his head of close-cropped white hair. From the scabbard at his hip he draws a basket-hilted broadsword—the blade gleaming with a golden sheen—and the presses the weapon’s point against the neck of the fallen engine.

     “I want everyone here to take good look at this creature,” the train spotter calls. His voice is deep and commanding, and it carries clearly to where Scott and Derek are hiding, bouncing off ice and stone as if the whole quarry were a bleak and enormous theatre. Scott recognizes it at once as the same voice he overheard in the Argents’ kitchen. This is Allison’s grandfather.

     “It’s not often we run across one of his kind in our work,” Gerard Argent continues. “Chris, do you want to tell the youngsters what we’ve caught tonight?”

     Scott realizes for the first time that one of the train spotters standing on the far side of the quarry is Allison’s father. He stands a little ways off from the rest of the group, watching the scene unfold.

     “A traction engine,” says Chris flatly.

     “That’s right,” his father agrees. “Now traction engines aren’t as fast as most, but they’re every bit as strong. They’re also not tied to the railways, so they can turn up in unexpected places. That can make them dangerous.”

     The man at his feet continues to keen in pain.

     “But,” Gerard says, not looking away from his prey, “traction engines also have a very serious weakness. Chris?”

     “They don’t form couplings,” Chris supplies.

     Gerard nods. “Other engines can form trains. The bonds that connect them make them stronger. But this poor devil…”

     Here he jabs the fallen man lightly in the hollow of his collarbone.

     “… has spent his entire life alone.”

     “Please,” the traction engine begs. “Please. I never hurt anyone. I never stole more than I needed. I just thought, in New Sodor, maybe things could be different.”

     Gerard continues as if he can’t hear the man’s pleading.

     “Perhaps it’s fitting then, that he will also die alone.”

     The broadsword flashes down in a vicious two-handed chop. Blood leaps up in a wine dark fountain and the traction engine’s head goes rolling away.

     Scott slumps against Derek, stunned. He feels as though all the air has been punched from his lungs. Across the quarry, Chris Argent starts forward with an angry cry.

     “The code! For God’s sake, Dad! We have a code!”

     “No,” Gerard growls, wiping the blood from his blade with a rag. “We had a code. Then the monsters murdered my daughter. Now…”

     He turns to face the assembled train spotters, and sheathes his sword with a dull click of finality.

     “Now we have a war.”

 

Stiles and Allison survey the remains of Lydia’s childhood home glumly. The concrete foundation is still intact, but everything else has been torn down. A safety fence of orange plastic mesh forces them to keep their distance.

     Stiles shakes his head. “This sucks.”

     Allison looks at him, a question written on her face.

     Stiles shrugs and looks back the foundation. Grubby snow is piled knee-deep in what used to be the basement.

     “All of it. Scott going off on his own. Jackson being a prick to us just because he can. This stupid, ugly hole in the ground. Even the freaking weather sucks tonight.”

     He kicks morosely at a half brick, a scrap left over after the demolition. “But mostly it sucks not knowing where Lydia is. Not knowing if she’s safe or in danger, alive or…”

     He breaks off abruptly, his shoulders trembling. Cautiously, Allison reaches out and takes Stiles’ hand in hers, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

     “She’s going to be okay, Stiles.”

     “How do you know?”

     Allison doesn’t have an answer for him and a deathly silence descends. It is broken by a familiar voice.

     “Um, hey guys…”

     Stiles and Allison whirl towards the sound. There, huddled in the shadow of a hedgerow, is Lydia. She looks exhausted and there are flakes of snow in her ruddy blond hair. She is also completely naked.

     Stiles totters as if unexpectedly struck with a blackjack. His jaw hangs slack and his eyes are approximately the size of soup plates. Lydia flushes. Stiles watches as the color spreads from her cheeks, down her throat and over her chest, until even her bare breasts are suffused with a rosy glow.

     Allison coughs lightly. Stiles jerks to attention and Lydia glares at him.

     “Well? Is someone going to offer me a coat?”

     Stiles shucks out of his coat so fast that it makes the watching Allison faintly dizzy. Then he dashes to Lydia’s side and gently settles the garment around her shoulders. The puffy grey and orange ski jacket falls just far enough down Lydia’s thighs to render her technically decent once more. She slips her arms through the sleeves and does up the zipper with a grateful shiver.

     “Come on,” says Stiles, his brain reluctantly beginning to work again, now that it is no longer being confronted by artlessly sensuous vision of Lydia’s naked body. “Let’s get you into the jeep and crank up the heater.”

     Lydia nods weakly and, to Stiles’ surprise, reaches for his arm. He lets her lean on him as he guides her carefully to the jeep.

     “He’ll never wash that coat again, you know,” Allison quips, following close behind them. The wealth of relief in her voice belies her airy words.

     “He’s a boy,” Lydia remarks, her weariness robbing her words of their usual bite. “I doubt he’s ever washed it in the first place.”

    

The hour is near dawn. A thin grey light is mounting in the eastern sky and the air is bitterly cold. Anyone with half an ounce of sense would be curled up in bed under a pile of blankets. Isaac Lahey, on the other hand, pushes open the door to the old train shed. The rusted hinges squeal as he steps inside.

     A match flares in the gloom and an old-fashioned railroad lantern sputters to life. The yellow light reveals the form of Derek Hale, perched on an upturned cable spool with the air of a king reclining of his throne.

     “You came,” Derek observes.

     “You said you would have answers for me,” Isaac reminds him.

     “I have answers,” Derek confirms. “But this kind of information is dangerous. I won’t give it to someone I can’t trust.”

     “You can trust me.”

     Derek shakes his head. “I can’t. Not yet. I don’t even know you. The only reason we’re having this conversation is because circumstances have forced my hand.”

     “What do you mean?”

     Derek sighs. “You already have dangerous information, Isaac. You’ve seen us. You’ve seen what we can do. That makes you a threat.”

     “Who are you? Who is ‘us’?”

     Derek gestures wordlessly around the train shed, taking in the huge hoist chains, the empty coal bins, and the dully gleaming metal rails.

     Isaac stares at him, not quite believing. “You’re trains?”

     Derek nods once.

     “Trains that can turn into people?”

     “More like people who can turn into trains. But mostly we call our other selves ‘engines’. A true train is a group of engines, all bound together by magic and a common purpose.”

     “Magic?”

     Derek shrugs. “It’s as good a word for it as any. Now, I’ve said more than I should. Before I can tell you any more, you have a decision to make, Isaac.”

     “What decision?”

     “Whether to become one of us. Whether to make our secrets, our dangers, our battles yours.”

     “I could be like you? Super strong and fast and everything?”

     “You could,” Derek confirms. “But there will be a cost. Distance and danger. Distance because once you have an engine of your own, no one without one will ever truly understand you. Danger because all people, engines or not, grow to fear what they do not understand.”

     He stands up and walks towards Isaac. The teenager stands spellbound, hypnotized by the deep voice and the strange light in Derek’s blue-grey eyes.

     “I said you were a threat, and that is true, but I will not force this thing upon you. I want you to have what I never did: a choice.”

     Isaac’s mind is reeling. He still isn’t entirely sure if he believes this man. Derek speaks with such absolute conviction, but so do plenty of people who spend their days in padded cells. Yet what he offers, a chance to feel powerful, to be something more than the fetch-and-carry boy for an abusive, pinchpenny father and his doomed business, is too alluring.

     “I’ve made my choice.”

     Derek smiles, a smile full of teeth and of knowing, and plucks something from the air, like a conjurer producing a coin. It is an ember, a single fiery mote that fills Isaac’s world with a steady red light. Mutely, instinctively, the boy stretches out his left arm, pulling back his sleeve to bare his upturned wrist.

     The pain burrows into Isaac’s flesh like a living thing.

 

**CLOSING THEME/SHOW CREDITS**


	2. Episode Two: “Rogue Engine”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The appearance of a new engine throws life in New Sodor into dangerous chaos.

Isaac Lahey is stacking chairs on tables in the empty dining room of _Romulus,_ his father’s struggling pizzeria. The hard seats clack loudly against the Formica. Isaac is still astonished by how feather light the chairs feel in his hands. The steam engine that Derek Hale welded to Isaac’s marrow and soul lends him tremendous strength, strength he is still far from accustomed to.

     His task complete, the rawboned youth rolls his neck with crackle of joints and goes to fetch a mop and bucket from the broom closet. As he rummages amongst the innumerable bottles of cleaners, polishes, and scours, someone coughs lightly to his immediate rear. Isaac whirls, still clutching a bottle of Pine-Sol, and all but collides with the looming form of John Lahey.

     Isaac’s father stares down at his son. They have the same thatch of dishwater blond curls, but the elder Lahey is nearly four inches taller, with a jaw like a cinder brick. He wears a white chef’s jacket, flapping loosely with the buttons undone, the ivory fabric streaked with grease and with soot from the coal-fired ovens. His dark eyes are flat behind their glasses.

     “Son, we need to talk.”

     Isaac ducks his head nervously, dreading what’s to come.

     “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Mr. Lahey orders. Isaac flinches but complies.

     His father nods once. “Good. Now, let’s discuss your grades.”

     “My grades?”

     “That’s what I said.”

     “What about them?”

     “Well, reports cards will be coming back soon, won’t they? Don’t they always send them out just before the December break?”

     “I guess,” Isaac hedges, fidgeting with the bottle of Pine-Sol.

     “So, why don’t you tell me what kind of grades I’m going to see?”

     “Uh, well, mostly ‘A’s and ‘B’s.”

     “Only mostly?”

     “Um, well you see, uh, my psych class… the teacher really isn’t good about giving feedback, so I…”

     “Isaac,” his father says, his voice low and dangerous. “The grade. Just tell me the grade.”

     “I don’t know yet, because she hasn’t handed back the last assignment we turned in and…”

     “Isaac…”

     The teenager grits his teeth. “A D. Maybe a D plus.”

     His father leans back, his posture relaxing. He even cracks a small smile.

     “See? Was that so hard?”

     Isaac blinks. “You’re not mad?”

     “Mad? Why would I be mad? All I wanted you to do was tell me the truth.”

     “Really?”

     His father nods. “Really. Of course, you’re still going to be punished.”

     Isaac’s face falls. His father nods grimly, his smile unwavering.

     “You let me down, Isaac. And you know the consequences for letting me down.”

     “Please, I didn’t mean…”

     John Lahey holds up a hand for silence. He picks up the long-handled push broom Isaac has just taken out of the closet. Moving an almost ceremonially air, he methodically unscrews the broom’s brush and lets it clatter to the floor. He gives the bare handle a little twirl.

     “Turn around, Isaac.”

     “Dad, don’t. You don’t have to…”

     “Turn around, you little shit...”

     Isaac turns his back on his father, tears stinging his eyes, hating himself for obeying. His father lifts the broom handle in both hands and brings it hissing down, striking broadside across Isaac’s back. Wood crashes loudly against metal and splinters fly in all directions.

     John Lahey stares, unable to process what has happened. Isaac feels his boiler pressure, the fiery energy that powers his steam engine, surge within him. The numeral ‘five’ branded on his forearm burns afresh. Color drains from his face. His skin feels tacky beneath his clothes, not sweaty precisely, more like a fresh coat of paint.

     “What did you do?” Isaac’s father demands.

     “Nothing Dad,” Isaac protests, turning hastily around, “It just…”

     John shakes the jagged end of the broom handle under Isaac’s nose like an accusing finger, or the spear keeping a wild animal at bay. “How did you do this?”

     “I didn’t, it just…”

     Isaac see’s his father’s face contort, sees his weight shift. He knows exactly what comes next. For five years, he’s had that hard lesson beaten into his body and memory. But not this time.

     He catches the stick as it whips towards his face and wrenches it out of his father’s grasp. His heart is thudding in his chest. His anger and fear are turning the boiler pressure into something hideous. He wants to lash out, to strike his father down with his newfound strength. He wants to punch him again and again until there’s nothing left but sticky paste. He wants it so badly he can taste it.

     The broom handle shatters in Isaac’s white knuckled grip. The loud crackle brings him back to himself. He shudders and drops the fragments of wood. Then, not meeting his father’s wide-eyed gaze, he turns and flees from the room.

     “Isaac!” his father bellows, but his only answer is the slamming of the restaurant’s front door and the tinny jingle of its bell.

 

Jackson Whittemore is crossing the wide, mostly deserted parking lot of the strip mall, when he hears a door slam. He looks up, and seems a dim figure running full tilt away from the darkened exterior of _Romulus_. Jackson doesn’t frequent the restaurant— he’s here visiting the nearby drugstore, stocking up on more Kleenex and grease cutter in case of another of his strange attacks—but it takes him only a moment to recognize Isaac Lahey.

     Jackson doesn’t know much about the younger boy. He’s on the lacrosse team, but not on first line, a benchwarmer and a loner who’s always carried himself like a dog expecting a smack. Kids like that aren’t even worth the effort of bullying, so Jackson’s always let him be.

     Now though… Jackson cocks his head. The kid is running fast. Like really fast, knob-kneed legs eating up the asphalt in huge loping strides. It almost looks like… no. No way.

     “Isaac!”

     That bellow comes from a burly, squared-jawed man, his sooty chef’s jacket hanging open. The man, who must be Isaac’s father, stands in the open doorway of the pizza place, glaring after the shrinking shape of his son. He stamps a foot in rage as the boy reaches the edge of the parking lot and of the yellow glow of its lights. In another thin sliver of an instant, Isaac has vanished into the night.

     Jackson shakes his head. “Jesus. Some people…”

     He continues to watch in morbid half-interest, as he unlocks his car and tosses the plastic shopping bag onto the passenger’s seat. The big man in the grubby uniform swears loudly and sprints to a parked pickup truck. He leaps in and urges the coughing engine to life. Jackson stares as the crazed man accelerates out of the parking lot, apparently having settled on pursuing his erring son by car.

     “Jesus,” Jackson mutters again. “What a bunch of freaks.”

     Then he glances at his bag of purchases and almost winces at the irony.

 

John Lahey has been driving for fifteen minutes when he spots a flash of movement by the side of the road. He pulls over onto the shoulder and hops out of the truck, leaving the engine running. The leafless sumac on the other side of the ditch trembles.

     “Isaac?” Mr. Lahey calls, keeping his voice low but carrying. His breath makes little clouds of steam in the night air. “Isaac, come here right now.”

     The bushes shake again.

     “Isaac, I’m warning you…”

     Then something explodes from the undergrowth. It gleams like metal and lacquer in the moonlight and it leaps across the ditch as though fired from a rail gun. Mr. Lahey cries out in terror as he catches a glimpse of the thing’s face—wide and grey and utterly inhuman. Then the cry is stifled by a sledgehammer blow. Fragments of bone and gore spatter the idling pickup truck and the distant moon shines down on the mortal remains of John Lahey.

 

**OPENING THEME PLAYS/TITLE CARDS**

 

Scott McCall pushes open the door of the old stone barn with some trepidation and steps inside. It’s warmer here, out of the wind, and the air is rich with the ghosts of alfalfa and clover.

     “Allison?” Scott calls softly into the velvety darkness.

     An electric lantern clicks on up in the loft, casting a glowing halo over plank walls and dusty rafters. Allison Argent’s smiling face appears at the edge of the platform.

     “Hello, Mr. McCall,” she says teasingly. “Won’t you come up?”

     There is a ladder, which creaks alarmingly but seems solid enough under Scott’s boots as he ascends. Allison meets him on the last step. Standing like this they are almost perfectly of a height. The kiss they share is effortless and no less sweet for that.

     “You’re sure no one followed you?” Scott asks as they pull apart. “No one from your family knows you’re here?”

     “No one,” Allison promises. “It’s okay, Scott. I’m not going to let them split us apart.”

     Scott shudders, the image of the traction engine’s head being so brutally and finally severed from his neck suddenly pressing itself upon him.

     “No,” he agrees, “Not us.”

     Allison frowns, her head tilted to one side. “Scott? What’s bothering you?”

     Scott bites his lip. _I watched your grandfather murder a defenseless man in cold blood, while your father stood by and did nothing._

The words are crystal clear in his brain but dissolve somewhere en route to his mouth. He knows Allison is already struggling. The years of secrets and Kate’s disastrous crusade are a dark weight on her bright spirit. Scott can’t, simply can’t, bring himself to add to that burden.

     He shakes his head. “It’s nothing really. I just worry what’ll happen with all these new train spotters in town.”

     Allison nods, drawing him down to sit cross-legged beside her on the floor of the loft. “That’s makes sense. But Scott, listen, whatever happens, we’ll deal with it when it happens, okay? Right now, lets just enjoy…”

     Her fingers trail through his dark hair and down over the nape of his neck.

     “…this.”

     Scott smiles, leaning towards her. “Well, if you’re sure we won’t be interrupted…”

     “Trust me,” Allison says with a chuckle. “Where I am is the last thing on my parents’ minds right now. It’s date night.”

    

Principal Thomas, the nominal head of New Sodor High School, is not expecting the knock that comes at his front door. He glances at the clock on the mantel, which tells him it’s a little after ten at night, too late for ordinary social calls. Still, he gives a mental shrug and mutes the TV before padding over to the door in his carpet slippers.

     The door opens to reveal Chris and Victoria Argent, flanked by a pair of burly men in surplus army gear.

     “Mr. Thomas,” says Victoria Argent, a hard-faced woman with short red hair, “I was wondering if we might take up a moment of your time.”

     Chris, a rangy man with cold blue eyes and a long jawline, lays a heavy hand on Principal Thomas’ shoulder and pushes him firmly back inside the house.

     “Sit down,” Chris suggests.

     “What is this?” the principal demands, stumbling reluctantly towards an armchair.

     “We’re here as concerned parents,” Victoria explains, nodding at one of the men in fatigues, who obediently shuts and locks the door behind them. “We’re worried about the way New Sodor High School is being run.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “Test scores are falling, college acceptance rates have plateaued, and then there was that incident at the Winter Formal.”

     “That wasn’t… I mean, I don’t…”

     The backs of Principal Thomas’ legs bump up against the chair and he sits down hard, Chris Argent looming over him.

     “Here’s how it’s going to be,” says Victoria, smiling icily. “You’re going to resign as principal and take some time to travel. Catch up with distant relatives, see new vistas, whatever you like. As long as it happens a long, long way from here.”

     “What? You can’t fire me!” Principal Thomas stammers.

     Victoria sighs and motions to the hard-eyed men who have accompanied her in. They step forward and hold the vainly struggling principal down, as Chris secures his arms and legs to the chair with heavy duty zip ties. Their work finished, they back. Victoria stalks forward. Now she holds what looks very much like a compact stun gun. A blue-white arc of electricity crackles between its metal prongs.

     “Now,” says Victoria, in exactly the same tone as before. “Let’s try again. Here is how it’s going to be…”

 

Lydia Martin subjects the student body of New Sodor High School to one of her finest withering glares. Eyes flick away from hers like fish startled by a shark. Allison, walking beside her, shudders slightly.

     “God, I feel like we’re walking into a big courtroom or something.”    

     “Just ignore them,” Lydia advises as they move towards the lockers. “They’re not looking at you, anyway. They’re looking at me.”

     Allison shakes her head. “I don’t get why. I mean, after that god-awful mess at Brendam Station I _know_ there were rumors about all four of us. But the school never felt like this.”

     “Three reasons,” says Lydia, opening her locker and glancing at the mirror tacked to the inside of her door. Her red-blonde hair cascades down her back in loose curls and the necklace of golden willow leaves draws artful attention to the plunging neckline of her wine dark dress. With something of the air of knight adjusting her armor before a tournament, she alters the angle of the matching earrings and produces a tube of deep burgundy lipstick from her purse.

     “One: The alert that went out had my full name on it, as well as a not especially flattering description. On the other hand, none of our names were ever attached to the Brendam Station mess, only your aunt and the Hales. And the fact that the Hales are a bad lot is so far from being news that it probably counts as local folklore.”

     “Two: My little walkabout happened in New Sodor, not Brendam. I know that’s less than a county away, but in small towns like this that difference really matters.”

     “And three,” Lydia concludes, tucking away the makeup and blotting her pouting lips lightly with a tissue. “No one at Brendam Station was naked.”

     Allison snorts. “Yeah, no nudity. Just boring stuff like murder and explosions.”

     Lydia shrugs and shuts her locker. Her mouth is set in a tight little smile. “You can see those on TV any day of the week. But Lydia Martin’s tits? Those are something special.”

 

Stiles Stilinski passes Scott a folded newspaper as they shoulder their way into the lacrosse team’s locker room. A small news item about halfway down the page is circled in red sharpie.

     “What’s this?” Scott asks, giving his friend a puzzled look. 

     “A murder,” says Stiles. His voice is low but tinged with undeniable excitement. “Last night.”

     “Morbid,” Scott observes, dropping his bag with a thud.

     “Did you read it?”

     “No, of course I haven’t read it. You just handed it to me.”

     “Did you see the part about how he was ‘killed by a single blow of tremendous force’?”

     “Nope. Because of the whole not reading it thing.”

     “I asked my dad about it.” Stiles’ father is the local sheriff. “He said it looked like the guy’s head got caught in a pile driver.”

     “But I’m guessing no pile drivers were found at the scene of the crime,” Scott sighs, shucking out of his shirt and pulling on a jersey.

     “Nope,” says Stiles, hastening to do likewise. “You know what I’m thinking, right?”

     “You think it was an engine.”

     Stiles nods vigorously, or tries to. His head is still only halfway out of the neck of his athletic shirt. The effect, taken in conjunction with Stiles’ fuzz of short brown hair and the slightly worrying intensity of his large brown eyes, is less than dignified.

     Scott shakes his head. “Who was this guy anyway? A train spotter?”

     “I don’t think so,” Stiles says, emerging from the fitted polyester at last. “Police IDed him as someone called John Lahey.”

     Scott frowns. “Lahey…”

     The name is familiar but before he can figure out why, Coach Finstock has barged into the room, explaining the plan for the day in his loud, barking voice and waving his clipboard excitedly. He herds the teenagers out onto the playing field as soon as the last cleat is tied.

     Scott can’t let his mind wander much during practice, for all that Stiles’ strange news troubles him. He needs to concentrate on appearing normal. He can’t run as fast as a bullet train or plow into his teammates with the strength of a locomotive, not if he wants to avoid drawing the wrong kind of attention. And with an army of bloodthirsty train spotters in town, keeping a low profile has suddenly become twice as important. So that’s what he focuses on, treading the line between star athlete and superhuman, until something occurs to interrupt his concentration.

     Scott is advancing on the goal, the heavy rubber ball held securely in the webbing of his stick. Another player steps up to check him, sticks clacking together loudly. Scott instinctively calls on Thomas for strength, letting a thin wisp of boiler pressure escape from his internal furnace to supercharge his lungs and muscles. With this boost, he expects to brush by the defender with barely an effort.

     Instead, he feels as if he’s run into a steel wall. The two boys collide with an audible clang and each goes staggering backwards, the ball dropping unregarded to the turf.

     Scott stares at his teammate, his heart thudding. The kid is big, not fat or even precisely muscular, just big-boned, with knobby knees and elbows and a sharp jaw and cheekbones under the mask of his helmet. His eyes are a dull, denim blue and his sandy curls are dark with sweat. Scott recognizes him at once—a shy kid and formerly a fellow benchwarmer—though it takes a breathless second for him to remember the boy’s name.

     “Isaac,” Scott pants. “Isaac Lahey.”

     The boy is staring at Scott with at least equal intensity. Fear and wonder war in his expression. Like Scott, he’s realized what this means. A boy that Scott can’t bowl over, someone with mass and muscle enough to weather Thomas’ steely strength…

     There are now two teenage engines on the New Sodor lacrosse team.

     “Don’t tell anyone,” Isaac hisses. The whisper is fierce and desperate.

     Scott shakes his head, not sure what to say to put the boy at ease, aware of the team’s eyes on him.

     “Lahey!”

     Again, Coach Finstock’s barking voices cuts into Scott’s tangled thoughts. Both boys look up. The wild haired lacrosse coach points at Isaac and jerks a thumb back at the edge of the field closest to the school. The sheriff, Noah Stiliniski, stands there, holding his official hat before him in both hands. His expression is as somber as Scott can ever remember seeing it and the deputy who accompanies him looks no more cheerful.

     Isaac pales and fumbles with his helmet. Wordlessly Scott accepts both helmet and lacrosse stick from the boy, and Isaac trudges across the pitch to meet the sheriff. Whispers fly between the high schoolers as he passes, new rumors already taking root. Scott looks for Stiles who comes sidling hastily up to him.

     “Scott, what happened?”

     “That kid. Isaac. He’s the murdered man’s son. Your dad must be here to talk to him officially.”

     “Oh Jesus,” Stiles whispers, his eyes snapping back to where the sheriff and his deputy are now speaking to Isaac in low voices. The boy’s shoulders convulse, his hands pressed to his stomach, and Scott wonders for a moment if Isaac is going to be sick. But all that seems to emerge is a hollow groan.

     “Oh Jesus,” Stiles repeats. “He can’t just be finding out now, can he?”

     “It kind of looks like it.”

     “Aw hell. That poor kid.”

     “And that’s not all,” Scott says grimly. “Stiles, I’m pretty sure Isaac’s an engine too.”

     “Oh you’re shitting me,” Stiles says. “You’re sure?”

     “He stopped Thomas in his tracks just now.”

     “Damn. Do you think _he’s_ the one who killed his father then?”

     Scott shakes his head. “No idea. Let’s try to get closer.”

     They drift across the playing field, where all playing has ground to a halt, trying to move as unobtrusively as possible. The sheriff has drawn Isaac aside and they are sitting together on the bleachers. Noah Stiliniski rests a big hand on the boy’s trembling shoulder. The deputy stands a little way off, checking messages on a cell phone. As Scott and Stiles watch, Jackson Whittemore detaches himself from a knot of whispering seniors and approaches the deputy.

     “What the hell is Jackson up to?” Stiles says, scowling.

     “He’s telling him something about Isaac,” Scott observes. Jackson isn’t exactly pointing at the younger boy, but at intervals he indicates Isaac to the deputy with small movements of his head.

     “Come on,” Scott whispers and he edges closer, trying to overhear what the deputy is saying.

     “…exactly when did this disturbance take place?”

     “Late,” Jackson replies. “11? Maybe 11:30. The restaurant was closed.”

     “And what did you see Mr. Lahey do?”

     “He was yelling at Isaac. Pretty loud and angry. Swearing at him and telling him to come back. Then, when Isaac didn’t come back, he got in his truck and drove after him.”

     “In which direction was he driving?”

     “He turned right coming out of the parking lot,” says Jackson, frowning. “So north?”

     The deputy nods, his face professionally impassive. “I see. Thank you for telling me this.”

     The man moves off and Jackson returns to his circle of cronies, where the buzz of whispers has redoubled. The deputy goes over to Noah Stilinksi and murmurs something in the sheriff’s ear. The sheriff’s eyebrows flicker in surprise. He asks Isaac something. The boy shakes his head dully, but it seems to be more of an automatic response than an answer to the question. After a few more muttered exchanges, both officers leave the field, accompanied by Isaac. Something about they way the men walk, one on either side of the boy, strikes Scott as deeply ominous.

     “Well damn,” says Stiles softly.

     “I guess he’s officially a suspect,” Scott says, watching the dull red lines of the trio’s rails vanish from sight.

     “Looks like,” Stiles agrees. “Dad must at least think he knows something that could be important. I wonder if Jackson was telling the truth.”

     “Why would he lie?”

     Stiles shrugs. “He’s an asshole?”

     “Yeah, but a murder investigation is big deal. I don’t think he’d try to shove Isaac under a bus that big unless he had some kind of reason.”

     “Jealousy? If he knows Isaac’s an engine too. I mean, he’s always wanted…”

     Scott nods sharply, cutting Stiles off. His friend doesn’t know that Derek Hale—at Scott’s not-exactly-request— _has_ actually tried to turn Jackson into an engine, and Scott isn’t looking forward to the conversation that will ensure when Stiles finds out. “Yeah, I know.”

     “So what do you say? Should we investigate? Try to clear Isaac’s name?”

     “You’re assuming he’s innocent.”

     “I’m assuming no one should go to jail just on Jackson Whittemore’s say so.”

     Scott knocks some mud off the toe of his cleat with his lacrosse stick. “Yeah, okay. Where do you want to start?”

     “Do you know where Isaac lives?”

     Scott shakes his head. “You?”

     “Nope. But it’ll be in his file in the main office. No problem.”

     “Why is it that whenever you say ‘no problem’ I get this sinking feeling in my stomach?”

    

Lydia Martin rubs at her eyes. The kind of website that has even dubiously accurate information on supernatural train people doesn’t spend much effort of graphic design. This one, which she’s found through a forum recommended to her by Stiles, features massive blocks of barely punctuated text, yellow Comic Sans font on a black background. Worse, it doesn’t seem to have any helpful information. At some point the amateur engine researcher, a shadowy individual identified only as ‘the_phat_controller’ went to the effort of collecting the testimonials of more than two-dozen engines (or at least people on the internet claiming to be engines), describing their experience of boiler pressure. A few of the accounts are so different from the others that Lydia is inclined to discount them as frauds, delusions, or perhaps particularly intense drug trips. But the rest paint a pretty clear picture. Heightened emotions and fever symptoms, yes. A powerful but nebulous need to be somewhere else, followed by several hours of wandering in a fugue state? Not so much.  

     “So I’m not an engine,” she says aloud, pushing her chair back from her desk and stretching. The words bring Lydia no comfort. For underneath them lurks the unspoken, inescapable truth:

     _But I’m not human either._

Scott, freshly showered and back in his day clothes, casts surreptitious looks up and down the empty hallway, while Stiles works on the office door with his plastic library card.

     “Can’t you hurry up a little?”

     “If I rush,” says Stiles, with maddening calm, “I could snap the card. Or damage the lock. And you already put the presidential veto on just smashing our way in, so…”

     “Yeah, I know, but if we’re caught…”

     There’s a loud click and the door to New Sodor High School’s main office swings inward.

     “Got it,” says Stiles, straightening up with a mildly smug expression. “Shall we go?”

     The two of them duck inside. Scott keeps a lookout, peering through the blinds on the window, while Stiles moves confidently to the row of large beige filing cabinets.

     “Lacey, Layder, Lafferty,” he mutters, flicking through file folders. “Lagan… ah, here we go. Lahey.”

     Stiles plucks the folder from the cabinet and carries it over to the secretary’s unoccupied desk. He rifles briskly through its contents until he finds the contact information form he’s looking for.

     “Someone’s coming…” Scott calls softly from his position by the window.

     “Principal Thomas?” asks Stiles.

     Scott shakes his head. “No, it’s… oh shit. It’s him.”

     “Him who?”

     “Allison’s grandfather. The train spotter. And he’s coming this way!”

     Stiles swears and leaps away from the desk, trying to look innocent. Then, just as quickly, he leaps back and snatches up the form from Isaac Lahey’s open file. He stuffs the paper into the pocket of his jeans, crumpling it badly, and has just turned round again, hands empty and face carefully blank, when the door opens.

     The man in the doorway peers at the teenagers with narrowed eyes. He has a ramrod straight posture and a bald domed head with a fringe of white hair, cut military short. His eyes are dark and intense under heavy black brows. A strong, squared-off chin speaks of stubbornness, and he wears a black blazer over a crisp white button-down.

     “Good afternoon,” he says, after an almost imperceptible pause. His voice is deep and faintly gravelly. “It’s Stilinski, isn’t it? And Mr. McCall.”

     “Uh, yes sir,” Scott manages, sidling a little closer to Stiles.

     “Who are you?” asks Stiles, folding his arms. “And how do you know our names?”

     “I’ve been doing my homework,” the man—Gerard Argent—informs them, moving further into the office. “I’ve found it pays to be prepared in this line of work.”

     When they still look blank he allows himself a small smile. “I’m your new principal, boys.”

     “What?” Scott blurts out.

     “Perhaps I should say interim principal,” Gerard says calmly. “Principal Thomas resigned unexpectedly. I’m here to fill the gap.”

     He sticks out a hand and Scott, operating on automatic, shakes it. The old train spotter has a grip like the bite of a horse.

     “I’m Principal Argent. I think you know my granddaughter, Allison.”

     “Uh, yeah, I… she…”

     “She’s a friend,” says Stiles quickly. “A distant friend. More of an acquaintance really.”

     Gerard nods. “I see. And what can I help you two boys with this afternoon?”

     “Sir?” Scott asks.

     “Well I presume there’s some reason you’re standing around in the main office after hours.”

     “Oh yeah, of course,” says Scott, his brain racing to catch up with the turn of events.

     “We wanted to sign up…” Stiles suggests, then seems to run out of track. “…for the…umm…”

     “The workshop,” Scott says quickly. “We heard there was going to be an anti-bullying workshop and we wanted to sign up.”

     “An anti-bullying workshop, eh?” says Gerard, rubbing his chin. “Well I don’t know anything about that. Sounds like a good idea though. I’ll have to ask Annie when she gets in tomorrow.”

     “Ah okay,” says Stiles, laying a hand on Scott’s shoulder and tugging him towards the door. “I guess we’ll try again tomorrow.”

     “Of course,” says Gerard evenly. “And if it happens that there’s been some mistake, perhaps, and no such workshop is planned…” He pauses for a moment, letting the words hang in the air like the blade of a guillotine. “…I’ll be sure to call on you boys to lead and organize one.”

     Stiles freezes. “Us? Lead a workshop?”

     Gerard smiles, but there is no humor in it, just a grizzled wolf baring its fangs. “And why not? This seems to be a subject you two are passionate about. And I think it would be good for us to work together on something. I have a strong feeling I ought to get to know the two of you better.”

     Stiles’ mouth is still hanging open, but Scott treads heavily on his friend’s foot before he can frame a response.

     “Yes sir,” says Scott firmly. “Thank you, sir.”

     Gerard dismisses them with a curt nod and the boys all but flee the office.

     Once they’ve gone, the old train spotter stalks over to the desk and peers down at the file folder lying open on its otherwise tidy surface. The name ‘Isaac Lahey’ catches his eye almost at once.

 

Scott and Stiles don’t stop for breath until they’re both sitting in Stiles’ old rattletrap jeep with the door locked.

     “Good grief,” Stiles declares, wiping his forehead. “ _That_ is Allison’s grandfather?”

     “Yup,” Scott confirms.

     “He looks like a veteran of the Roman Legion. And those eyes… they seemed to go right through me like bullets.”

     “You didn’t see him swinging a broadsword around,” Scott reminds his friend. “His bite’s a lot worse than his bark.”

     Stiles shudders. “Are you sure this girl of yours is worth it, Scott? I mean, first her aunt tries to kill you, then her father threatens you at crossbow point, and now this...”

     “Never mind about me and Allison right now,” says Scott impatiently. “Did you get what we came for?”

     Stiles produces the crumpled contact sheet from his pocket and smooths it out on the dashboard.

     “There’s the address,” he announces. “Shall we go?”

     “I’m not exactly sure what we’d be looking for…” Scott demurs.

     “We gotta start somewhere.”

     _Ain’t that the truth,_ the jeep assents, though only Scott can hear it. He shakes his head ruefully.

     “Fine. Let’s get it over with.”

     And so it is that the two of them arrive some seventeen minutes later at the two-story firetrap that has been Isaac Lahey’s home for the last sixteen years. The short winter day is nearly over and the light is fading fast. The house’s slate gray paintwork looks muddy in the orange glow of the sunset. Scott and Stiles hurry up the front drive.

     “Do you think your card trick would work on this door too?” Scott asks in a low voice.

     Stiles pulls a face. “Not if they’ve replaced their locks in the last ten years. Or installed a deadbolt. How do you feel about kicking this door down?”

     “Or we check under the mat for a…” Scott’s voice trails off as both boys notice that the front door’s handle is missing, replaced by a raggedly circular hole in the wood.

     “Someone got here first,” Stiles whispers.

     The broken door swings open and Derek Hale steps out onto the front porch.

     Outwardly a man in his mid twenties—dark-haired, grey-eyed and muscular—Scott knows from experience that Derek wields the spirit of a steam engine that is faster, heavier, and at least as strong as Thomas. Derek’s taught Scott some important things about being an engine, but he also hasn’t hesitated to knock Scott around whenever he’s thought it was warranted. He is also—to both boys’ certain knowledge—a murderer.

     “What are you doing here?” Stiles demands, his voice coming out a little higher than usual.

     “Where’s Isaac?” asks Derek, ignoring Stiles.

     Scott’s eyes narrow as he stares up at the older engine. “Why do you want to know?”

     “I don’t have time play guessing games right now, McCall.”

     “You branded him, didn’t you?”

     Derek makes an impatient gesture. “No shit. I’m the only one in this town who knows how to brand someone. Now where is he?”

     “Why?” Scott demands. “Why do this him?”

     “He chose this,” Derek says, his voice suddenly fierce. “I gave him a choice, which is more than I ever got.”

     “But you’re dragging him into a war with the train spotters,” Scott points out. “A war he knows nothing about.”

     Derek looks away. “Being an engine’s always dangerous. But we’re stronger together. That’s what a train is, what the word means. Engines bound together, a caravan of souls.”

     Now he meets Scott’s eyes squarely. “I can’t fight the Argents’ new army on my own. If any of us are going to survive, we need to cooperate.”

     “And recruit?” asks Scott, feeling a little sick.

     Derek nods. “That’s right.”

     Scott shakes his head. “No. This isn’t right. We don’t have the right to turn someone’s life upside down like that. You don’t have the right.”

     He doesn’t realize that his hands have curled into fists until he sees Derek unconsciously mirroring the gesture, shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet, ready for instant, violent action.

     Stiles coughs loudly and unconvincingly. Both engines turn to look at him.

     “Isaac’s been taken to the police station,” he points out. “That seems kind of important. Maybe we should talk about that, like, now? And then we can have a brawl about the ethics of engine warfare later?”

     Derek nods curtly and, with a visible effort, relaxes his posture. Scott copies him and feels a sudden chill as a fiery energy he’d barley noticed drains out of the red and yellow numeral ‘one’ inscribed over his heart.

     “The police station,” Derek repeats.

     “His father’s been murdered,” Stiles explains. “We think maybe by another engine. Something strong, anyway.”

     “And Isaac?”

     “It sounded like maybe he had some kind of big argument with his father last night. I guess the police think…”

     Derek cuts him off with a sharp shake of his head. “No. I felt the… argument… through the coupling. The boy’s father put the fear of God into him. But murder? No way. I’d have felt murderous intent if it was there.”

     “Someone killed him,” Scott points. “If not Isaac, who?”

     Derek frowns. “We can work that out later. For now we need to get Isaac out of there. He’s close to his breaking point. I can feel it.”

     “Breaking point?” demands Stiles.

     Derek bares his teeth a humorless smile. “If we’re lucky, he’ll just crack and start babbling everything he knows to the cops.”  

     “And if we’re not?” Scott asks.

     “He’ll snap and kill them all.”

 

Allison Argent sits perched on a tall stool at the kitchen counter, notebooks and pens spread across the pristine white marble. In theory, she is reviewing her history notes preparatory to taking the weekly quiz tomorrow. In reality, she’s filling up the margins of her notebooks with doodles, mostly of train tracks that wind back and forth and around without arriving anywhere. Her mind is back in the hayloft of an old stone barn.

     Allison’s father, Chris Argent, stands at the sink with his back to the room, ostensibly loading the dishwasher. He polishes each knife and wine glass until they are practically sparkling, before depositing them in the appliance’s wire racks. It’s a bad habit, one that no amount of scolding from Allison (“It just wastes water, Dad.”) or her mother (“Honestly Chris, what did we even buy the dishwasher for?”) has yet cured.

     Chris’ cellphone rings and he turns off the water to answer it.

     “Chris Argent speaking.”

     “The dead man that the patrol found. What was his name?” Gerard Argent’s voice is loud and gruff, carrying clearly to Allison on the side of the kitchen.

     Allison’s father frowns. “Police identified him as John Lahey. Why?”

     “Someone’s just been taking an interest in his son.”

     “What? Someone at the high school?”

     “That’s right,” Gerard confirms. “Two students. One of them was that McCall fellow who was seeing Allison for a while. Kate always said there was something fishy about that young man. Looks like she was right.”

     “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Dad.” Chris’ voice is just at little too calm as he says that.

     Gerard snorts. “To hell with that. You still have a man at the police station?”

     “In a manner of speaking.”

     “Tell him to get his ass over there and find out whatever else the sheriff’s people know about Lahey’s murder. I’ll stop by the boy’s house on my way back from the school, see if I can turn up anything interesting.”

     “Dad,” Chris protests, drifting towards the kitchen door, “I can do the recon at the house. You don’t have to…”

     “You’re going to be busy. Scramble a kill squad and have them standing by. Soon as we know anything, we’ll move.”

     “And if we don’t find anything?”

     “Oh we’ll find something. Either the boy is the engine, and he killed his own father, or he’s not, in which case it’s eight to one odds he’s the real engine’s next target.”

     Chris sighs but heads for the war room—a brick-lined parlor the Argents use to coordinate their train spotting efforts—with long, urgent strides.

     As soon as he’s out of sight, Allison leaps up and bolts for the garage.    

 

Stiles makes a choking sound. “My dad’s in there. We can’t… We can’t let that happen.”

     “So we get Isaac out of there,” Derek says firmly. “We get him somewhere quiet where I can talk him down.”

     “What if…” Stiles begins, but at this point Scott’s cell phone rings loudly.

     “It’s Allison,” Scott announces, as the other two glare at him. “Just a second.”

     He takes a few steps back down the drive and brings the phone to his ear.

     “Allison?”

     “Scott, thank God. Where are you?” Her voice is fierce with worry and Scott can hear the growl of a car’s engine in the background.

     “Uh, Stiles and I were looking into this…uh…thing.”

     “Are you at the Laheys’ house?”

     “Uh, yeah. How did you…”

     “Listen to me. You have to get out of there right now. My grandfather’s coming, and a train spotter kill squad won’t be far behind.”

     “Shit,” Scott swears. “You sure?”

     “I overhead his phone call to my dad. They’re sending someone to the police station too. Probably that state detective guy.”    

     “Shit, shit, shit,” Scott announces. “Isaac Lahey’s at the police station.”

     “What?”

     “It’s complicated. He’s an engine too but he’s innocent. Derek vouches for him.”

     “Derek?”

     “Yeah, I know,” says Scott, hearing again the wrenching snap of Peter Hale’s breaking neck. “For what it’s worth, I think he’s telling the truth. But I don’t think Isaac’s control is very good. If a train spotter threatens him…”

     “Blood and mayhem,” Allison summarizes. “Well okay. I’ve got an idea that might buy Isaac a little time. But we need to get him clear fast.”

     “Working on it,” Scott grunts. “Will you be safe?”

     “I’ll be fine. Now go!”

     She ends the call and Scott, his own boiler pressure mounting, turns back to Stiles and Derek.

     “Jeep. Now. Train spotters incoming.”

     Those five words are enough to get them all on the move. Stiles’s rattletrap jeep coughs and stutters as he works the ignition and for a horrible moment Scott thinks they’ll be stranded there in plain sight, but at last the engine catches and by the time Gerard Argent turns onto the block they are a blue and rusty blur, vanishing around a distant street corner.

 

Allison parks her little blue car some twenty yards down a dirt side road. The dark pine trees, still heavy with needles even in the bitter winter, hide her vehicle from the county highway. She grabs her bow, a sleek tournament weapon of fiberglass and high-tension nylon, and a quiver of arrows from the car’s trunk. Then she all but sprints through the knee-deep snow. Flushed and breathing hard, she reaches her goal: the top of a high bank with a good view of the highway in either direction. Moving with the ease of familiarity, she strings the bow and knocks an arrow. Then she settles back in the deepening shadows to wait.

     Even in the twilight, she recognizes Detective Harper’s car at once. She remembers seeing it parked in her own driveway—a big white SUV, like an iceberg with wheels.

     Allison sights on those wheels, and lets the arrow fly. Harper isn’t breaking any speed limits, not on these icy roads, and Allison is a damn good shot. The arrow punches into the thick rubber of a tire with a sharp hiss and a deafening pop.

     Rubber shreds and the SUV lists dangerously to one side. Allison fires again and then again, taking out both left hand tires and both rear tires. The big car settles on its rims with an ungodly scream of protesting metal. Harper throws the emergency brake and leaps out, staring at the arrows in wide-eyed astonishment.

     Allison had hoped that at this point the man would give in, call a tow truck and resign himself to leaving his mission uncompleted. Instead, Detective Harper kicks a wheel in a pensive sort of way and, seeming to conclude that the car is no longer functional, turns and starts jogging down the road.

     Allison curses under her breath. They’re less than a mile from the police station—it was the only place she could be sure of intercepting her quarry—and Stiles’ ancient jeep is nowhere in sight. She needs to buy more time.

     Aiming twice as carefully as before, Allison sets a fourth arrow to the string and sights along its length.

     Detective Harper screams, high and undignified, as a steel arrowhead passes cleanly through the meat of his calf.

 

Stiles parks the jeep in the station lot and is about to leap out when Scott lays a restraining hand on his friend’s arm.

     “Look,” he whispers, not pointing but gesturing with a tilt of his head.

     Stiles’ follows the motion and sees a man limping rapidly across the darkened parking lot. His long overcoat is flapping wildly, his face is white with pain, and something long and sharp is protruding from his lower leg.

     “Your girlfriend’s handiwork?” Derek murmurs from the backseat.   

     “God, it must be,” Scott breathes, more than a little shaken.

     “Well it’s good news for us. Come on. We’ve got to be ready to move while they’re distracted.”

     The three of them navigate silently around to the side of the building, while the limping detective approaches the front door. When the sounds of commotion reach their ears, Derek reaches out and calmly punches in the handle of the locked side entrance door.

     “Shit,” Stiles groans. “Breaking and entering at my own dad’s police station. I am so dead.”

     “Shut up and make yourself useful,” Derek instructs as they slip inside. “Where are the interview rooms?”

     Stiles leads them down a long hall. One of the fluorescent lights overhead flickers and it seems to Scott that flickering keeps time with his nervous heartbeats. Then Stiles comes to an abrupt halt.

     “That’s probably not good.”

     The three of them stare at the door to the interrogation room. It’s steel, set in a steel frame, with a tiny window reinforced with steel mesh.

     And there’s a dent in it the size of bowling ball. From the shape, it was obviously made by something hitting the door from the inside, and with tremendous force. When Scott touches the bulge, the metal is still uncomfortably warm to the touch.

     “Oh God,” Scott breathes, “You don’t think he…”

     “Out of the way,” Derek orders.

     Scott gives way and the older engine rams the door with his shoulder. Once, twice, and on the third time it gives way.

     “Someone will have heard that…” Stiles whispers. “We’re going to have company any…”

     His voice trails off as they survey them room. Fragments of a heavy table are scattered across the floor. Twisted scraps of metal and shards of plastic must once have been a trio of hard chairs. Two chair legs have been driven inches deep into one of the cinder block walls, like pitons in a cliff face. Elsewhere, the walls have simply been torn into, the hard concrete pounded into powder by fists and feet, exposing long ribs of rebar. Broken links of chain, the remnants of handcuffs, are mixed in with the rubble.    

     Isaac Lahey sits in one corner, covered splinters and grey dust, his shoulders heaving with huge, gasping breaths. One metal cuff is still fastened about his right wrist and the boy is gnawing at it, spitting out slivers and shavings of metal. On his other wrist a yellow and black numeral ‘five’ gleams. It looks like a fresh tattoo, but Scott knows better.

     Isaac looks up at them, his eyes wild, full of fear and furious defiance. Derek is unmoved, his grey eyes hard, his back straight.

     “What happened?” Derek demands.

     “I didn’t…” Isaac protests. “I didn’t…”

     His dirty blond hair is soaked with sweat and little curls of steam are actually rising from his scalp. His skin is shining like new paint and while his face is ashen, streaks of red and black are appearing on neck and arms. Even as Scott watches, a row of rivets blooms along the length of the teenager’s jawbone, like the stitches in a Frankenstein’s monster.

     “Derek, his boiler pressure’s running wild,” Scott warns. “He’s barely hanging on.”

     “Did anyone see you change?” Derek demands, ignoring Scott. “Did you hurt anyone with your little temper tantrum?”

     Isaac is on his feet in a bare instant, uncoiling like an overwound watch spring, but Derek has been expecting this. He slaps down the young engine’s clumsy blow and seizes him by his shirtfront. He hurls the rawboned youth against the far wall with a clang and another shower of grey dust.

     “Did you hurt anyone?” Derek all but bellows.

     “No!” Isaac roars back.

     “Guys, if we could keep it down a little…” Stiles begs but no one is listening. Derek’s eyes have gone suddenly glassy and Scott can feel an abrupt change in the air. It’s like the feeling of humming of rails under his feet but all around him yet somehow very far away, and he realizes that Derek is leaning hard on his coupling with Isaac.

     All at once, Derek’s face clears. “He’s telling the truth. He just panicked. They cuffed him to the table while they went to check on what was happening in the lobby, and he panicked.”

     Isaac nods weakly and starts to slump back to the floor, but Scott catches him under the arms. “Oh no you don’t. Not here. We’ve got to move.”

     They’ve almost made back to the side entrance when something goes wrong. The broken door swings inward. Stiles’ thoughts are so taken up with worry about running into his father that for a split second he’s convinced that it is the sheriff himself standing in the open doorway, a darker shape against the night.

     Then the figure takes a half step forward into the flickering light of the hallway and Stiles realizes just how wrong he was.

     It is an engine, or something like one, in its humanoid shape. It stands around six feet tall with a rectangular slab of a face, pale grey and utterly expressionless. It wears no clothes, but its whole body is encased from head to toe in something dark and shining, like a black beetle’s carapace or the armor of an honorless knight, treated with lampblack the better to do murder in the dark. Only a belt around its waist gleams Fokker triplane red. A petrochemical reek radiates off the thing in nauseating waves.

     Stiles stares, slack jawed, but Isaac lurches into motion. Scott tries to haul him back, but even Thomas is no match for the sudden burst of strength, and Scott finds himself thrown sideways into the wall as Isaac flies at the monster with his bare fists.

     The attack is utterly unscientific and Scott recognizes all the hallmarks of an engine being ruled by the simple, urgent impulses of its boiler pressure. The creature slips right past the wildly flung punches, letting a few simply glance of its dark chassis, and seizes the teenager around the throat with two black-gauntleted hands.

     Isaac’s face, already faintly grey, begins to darken to the color of slate as incalculable mechanical pressure bears down his windpipe.

     Derek charges, bellowing like the blast of a steam whistle. He hits the monster around the level of the solar plexus in a fifty miles an hour flying tackle. All three of them careen out of the police station and crash-land in the parking lot.

     Running footsteps sound from within the police station, but suddenly discovery seems very much the lesser of two evils. Scott rushes forward and throws himself into the scrum of struggling engines. Derek’s engine is strong and fast, but the black engine is stronger and moves with an odd, liquid grace despite its confining carapace. Isaac is three-quarters dead already and can only struggle feebly.

     Scott knows his limits by now and he doesn’t waste time trying to match this new monster, strength for strength. Instead he directs a series of short, sharp body blows at the thing, aiming for the belly and the floating ribs, trying to put it on the defensive.

     Stiles tears his eyes aways from the battle and sprints for the jeep. He doesn’t have any proper weapons in there—which is beginning to feel like a major oversight—but there is a toolbox for the near-constant repairs that the old clunker seems to require. A heavy pipe wrench should at least get the thing’s attention.

     Just as his fingers close around the cold, cast-steel handle, a loud voice from the direction of the station yells, “Hey, what the hell is going on out there?”

     Stiles recognizes the voice instantly as his father’s and he hastily ducks behind the body of the jeep, out of sight. The sheriff is advancing into the parking lot, flanked by four deputies. All of the officers have their guns drawn, but no one is firing. True night has fallen and the parking lot light is out. Stiles wonders if the thing, whatever it is, smashed it on purpose. A fresh flurry of snow has begun to fall, further reducing visibility. The four engines are only dim shapes, struggling in the gloom, though the racket of metallic clangs and pained grunts is loud and carrying.

     “Identify yourself!” the sheriff barks and there’s the click of a safety catch coming off, a small noise but carrying.

     The black engine suddenly disengages, still moving with that same slippery agility, and bolts away down the street.

     “Stay on him!” Derek barks at Scott, and the teenager nods once. The brand on his chest is burning with the heat of battle now and he lowers his head and charges after the fleeing creature. Derek sweeps up the limp form of Isaac in both arms and sprints off in the opposite direction.

     The deputies scramble to the squad cars but before they can even unlock their doors, Scott and Derek have vanished into the night. 

 

Scott pours on the speed, calling on Thomas for every scrap of steam power the disembodied engine can offer, but even so he can’t seem to close the gap between him and his quarry. They tear along the main street, mercifully all but empty on this dark cold night, throwing up chunks of asphalt as their footfalls land with the force of striking sledgehammers.

     The black engine changes course abruptly, sprinting up the ramp that will take it onto the winding county road that passes for a highway in New Sodor. Scott follows it. The road twists and turns, but never sharply enough to throw Scott off the trail. Then without warning the black engine abandons the road altogether and veers off into the leafless woodland.

     Scott plunges after it, trampling through the brush in his haste. A moment later the barren trees part to reveal a high embankment, half covered in brown and frozen weeds. Metal rails, rusted and frost rimed, run along the top of it. Scott recognizes the train tracks at once—the Peel Godred Branch Line, one of the dozens of defunct lines that crisscross the county—but to his dismay there is no sign of the black engine.

     Moving cautiously now, Scott creeps to the top of the embankment, hoping the marginally higher vantage point will afford him a better view. The heavy cloud cover deepens the nighttime darkness and the falling snowflakes sizzle on Scott’s skin, like drops of water landing on a hot frying pan. Standing on the train tracks, he looks first north and then south.

     And it is as he turns to south that the attack comes from the north. The black engine must have been lying completely flat in the weeds, only feet from the tracks. Its rails are somehow stunted, shorter and dimmer, and they give Scott next to no warning. Now it explodes out of hiding with a roar. It hits the train tracks, already moving faster than a speeding car, and transforms.

     This engine is shaped like a cinder brick. It has no steam stack, no tender, no numbers on its glossy black sides, just a scarlet bumper under a face like a tombstone. It moves with a rumbling snarl, not the steady chugging Scott is accustomed to, and its breath is foul with a smell like gasoline.

     It hits Scott, still in his mostly human shape, and sends him flying. He lands on his back, stunned and splayed out on the rails, with the iron wheels of the strange engine bearing down on him. In another instant they’ll be on him, cutting and crushing, gouging and grinding. It’s an ugly, brutal death. Scott knows. He’s seen it before.

     An arrow buries itself in the black engine’s cheekbone up to the fletching. The creature screams and slams on its brakes. Something entirely too dark and viscous to be blood wells up and pours down over its grey face. The thing shifts again, dropping to its knees a foot away from Scott’s head. Now it is clutching the gory arrow in its left hand, though a deep wound still oozes in its cheek.

     Scott knows he should get up but his ears are still ringing and his head feels like it’s connected to the rest of him by a long, frayed string. Beside him the black engine shudders and coughs a gobbet of crude oil onto the rails.

     “Scott, stay down!”

     The voice is Allison’s, clear and commanding. A heartbeat later another arrow comes winging out of the night and pierces the black engine through its shoulder. The monster snarls in pain and scrambles backwards, wrenching at the shaft with its free hand. A third arrow thuds into the frozen gravel a few inches from the creature’s right leg.

     It snarls again, furious and fearful, and hurls itself down the side of the embankment. It breaks into a staggering run and vanishes into the trees.

     Scott exhales, a long rattling sigh of relief. Snowflakes settle on his forehead and melt at once. The cool water feels soothing and indescribably sweet.

     “Scott? Are you okay?”

     Allison is kneeling beside him, her bow and quiver slung over her back. Scott wonders how long she’s been there.

     “Scott?”

     “I’m okay,” he manages. “I just need a minute.”

     “What was that thing?”

     “No idea,” Scott confesses. “Maybe Derek will know.”

     “Where is Derek? What happened at the police station?”

     Scott explains, as best he can. By the time the explanation is over he’s feeling mostly normal again. Derek explained to him once that the same magic that transforms his body can almost always repair it, if it’s given time to work. Unfortunately, that means the black engine will be recovering too.

     He sits up, wincing only slightly, and Allison helps him to his feet.

     “Thanks for the rescue,” he says softly, pulling her close. She leans into him, lifting her face for a kiss.

     “Any time.”

 

**CLOSING THEME/CREDITS**

 

 

 

 


End file.
